Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said Wednesday that Venezuelan troops have already begun to disobey orders and will likely refuse to block the thousands of volunteers who plan to escort a humanitarian-aid caravan across the country's border on Saturday. “Saturday's a day when we're going to find a lot about the Maduro regime,” Rubio told Bloomberg in a telephone interview. Opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is officially recognized as the president of Venezuela by the Trump administration and 30 other nations, has urged the military to defect and refuse Maduro's orders to block aid shipments at the border.

Investigators searched for decades for the killer of an 11-year-old girl who disappeared while walking home from summer school in a case that gripped a California seaside community. A photo of a smiling Linda O'Keefe has hung for years on the wall of the police department in Newport Beach, reminding investigators to keep pressing forward on cold cases like hers. More than four decades later, authorities in Southern California said Wednesday that a Colorado man has been arrested and charged with killing her in 1973.

Canada is looking to quickly bring over siblings of a Syrian refugee distraught over the loss of her seven children in a Halifax house fire, the prime minister said Thursday. "The immigration minister is seized with this particular case," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said when asked if Ottawa would fast-track the immigration or asylum process to bring the woman's brothers to Canada in order to provide her with family support. The family was among tens of thousands of Syrian refugees welcomed by Canada over the past four years.

New York Times publisher Arthur “A.G.” Sulzberger responded to what he called “President Trump's continued attacks on a free press” Wednesday, hours after Trump lashed out at the paper as a “true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. Sulzberger wrote that Trump's “demonizing the free press as the enemy, simply for performing its role of asking difficult questions and bringing uncomfortable information to light, President Trump is retreating from a distinctly American principle. The latest standoff between the Times and the White House followed the paper's Tuesday publication of an in-depth examination of Trump's efforts to discredit and derail multiple investigations into his presidential campaign and action...

The European Union and Britain are moving towards a separate legal statement in which the bloc would again stress the temporary nature of the so-called Brexit backstop for the Irish border, diplomats in Brussels said. They spoke of a "parallel declaration" or "interpretative instrument" on the backstop, a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May and the head of the European Union's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, met in Brussels to seek a way out of the Brexit deadlock. The backstop is an insurance policy designed to avoid border controls between EU member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland after Brexit.

Southwest Airlines, alarmed by a spike in flight cancellations and delays in the past several days due to reported maintenance issues, has taken the unusual step of publicly apologizing to customers and blaming the mess on its mechanics' union. In a statement late Tuesday, Southwest Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven said the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which has been in contract talks with Southwest since 2012, has a history of work disruptions and that Southwest will be investigating the "current disruption and exploring all possible remedies.'' He noted that Southwest also has two outstanding lawsuits against the AMFA. "We apologize to our customers who have been inconvenienced by this disruption,'' Van de Ven said.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is set to arrive in China on Thursday in the middle of a multi-country swing through Asia that may burnish his image abroad as ties with western leaders remain strained. The visit will include a meeting with President Xi Jinping and a high-level joint dialogue aimed at boosting relations after the nations agreed to promote a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016. He's expected to visit South Korea after that in the final leg of his tour after stops in Indonesia and Malaysia were postponed.

To become eligible for Social Security disability benefits, you must be unable to engage in substantial gainful activity. "It is possible to qualify for Social Security disability benefits and still work in a limited capacity," says Nick Ortiz, a board-certified Social Security disability attorney and owner of Ortiz Law Firm in Pensacola, Florida. Read on for a look at what's involved with Social Security disability benefits, as well as the rules related to working while receiving benefits.

A small funeral home was packed with hundreds of mourners for a 21-year-old college student who was killed on the first day of his internship when a worker opened fire inside an Illinois manufacturing facility. Trevor Wehner was among five people killed in the Friday shooting at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora. During a brief religious service Wednesday in the Village of Sheridan, Wehner was remembered as family-oriented, someone who could change the atmosphere of a room just by walking in and who liked to tease and play jokes.

The Home Office has stripped jihadi bride Shamima Begum of her British citizenship, but the ongoing saga of what will happen next to her and her days-old son remains up in the air. International law forbids nations from making people stateless by revoking their only citizenship, prompting speculation that Begum held dual citizenship through her Bangladeshi parents. On Wednesday morning, Begum's lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said his client does not have dual nationality, but the Home Office told The Telegraph laws in Bangladesh means the teenager automatically retains dual citizenship until she is 21.

Pope Francis promised that concrete action against child sexual abuse by priests would result from a conference he opened on Thursday, with one cardinal acknowledging that the Church had to fight "the enemy within". Francis convened Catholic leaders from around the world for the four-day meeting to address the scandal that has ravaged the Church's credibility in the United States - where it has paid billions of dollars in settlements - Ireland, Chile, Australia, and elsewhere over the last three decades. His opening remarks appeared aimed at countering scepticism among victims who said the meeting looked like a public relations exercise.

Pakistan on Thursday banned two groups believed to be fronts for the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, amid heightened pressure on Islamabad to act against militants. Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation were designated "proscribed organisations", the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan had ordered officials to accelerate action against banned groups. JuD and FIF are considered by the UN to be fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group accused by Washington and New Delhi of carrying out the Mumbai attack, which killed 166 people and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Jussie Smollett was arrested by police in Chicago early Thursday, three weeks after the “Empire” actor and singer claimed he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. Smollett was charged with disorderly conduct for falsifying a police report, a Class 4 felony that is punishable by up to three years in prison. According to reporters inside the courtroom, Smollett took deep breaths and shook his head several times as his family members stood in the gallery. His next court appearance is scheduled for March 14.

Emissions of carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming – could soar to levels not seen in 56 million years by the middle of next century, scientists warned in a study Wednesday. Though it won't happen in our lifetimes, it could very well happen in the lives of our grandchildren or great-grandchildren. "You and I won't be here in 2159, but that's only about four generations away," said study author Philip Gingerich, a University of Michigan paleoclimate researcher.

On the Venezuelan side, President Nicolas Maduro, who has promised a competing concert, says the aid is a pretext for a U.S. intervention and has locked down his nation. The socialist autocrat started closing entry points on Thursday, and soldiers hindered the movements of opposition lawmakers and National Assembly leader Juan Guaido, who is trying to rally the world behind him as he attempts to break Maduro's grip on the military. Guaido's primary weapon is tons of donated food and medicine being stockpiled in Colombia, Brazil and the island of Curacao.

Nearly four years ago, the U.S. government's highway safety agency began investigating air bag inflators made by ARC Automotive of Tennessee when two people were hit by flying shrapnel after crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 8 million Fiat Chrysler, Hyundai, Kia and General Motors vehicles in the U.S. use the company's inflators. The investigation became more urgent in 2016 after a Canadian woman driving a Hyundai was killed by shrapnel from an ARC inflator.

France is to recognise anti-Zionism, the denial of the state of Israel, as a form of anti-Semitismin response to a surge in acts against Jews not seen “since the Second World War”. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, also promised new legislation in May to fight hate speech on the Internet, which could see platforms such as Facebook and Twitter fined for every minute they fail to take down racist or violent content. While stopping short of calling for new legislation, the President said the working definition of anti-Semitism drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance would help guide police forces, magistrates and teachers in their daily work.

Two Saudi Arabian sisters have spent almost six months hiding in Hong Kong after authorities reportedly foiled an attempt to flee the conservative kingdom, a human rights group says. Using aliases to protect their identities, non-profit Justice Centre Hong Kong said in a statement that Reem, 20, and Rawan, 18, arrived in the city on Sept. 6, 2018, after escaping during a family holiday in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. The pair had booked a connecting flight to Melbourne Australia, where they planned to seek asylum, but they were intercepted upon landing and told their flight had been cancelled.

Former President Barack Obama and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry told a roomful of minority boys on Tuesday that they matter and urged them to make the world a better place. Obama was in Oakland, California, to mark the fifth anniversary of My Brother's Keeper, an initiative he launched after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The initiative was a call to communities to close opportunity gaps for minority boys, especially African-American, Latino and Native American boys, Obama said to roughly 100 boys attending the alliance's first national gathering.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) handed over more than 150 Iraqi and other foreign Islamic State fighters to Iraq on Thursday. The handover was the first of several, two Iraqi military sources told Reuters, under an agreement brokered to handover a total of 502 fighters. quot;The majority of the fighters are Iraqi," said a military colonel whose unit is stationed at the Syrian border.

A sprawling storm so massive it simultaneously dumped snow in Minnesota and Virginia and heavy rains from Indiana to Alabama fueled weather havoc Wednesday in every state east of the Mississippi River and beyond. In the North, snow totals were tamped down by a more dangerous winter storm weapon – ice. Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington were among major cities hit with inches of snow, with sleet moving in behind it.